Reports

Second workshop on "Kappa goniometry"16-17 April 2013
The second in a series of workshops and meetings to aid with the dissemination and teaching of the exploitation of kappa geometry goniometry for MX was held on 16th and 17th April 2013 at MAX LAB, where a visit to the MAX IV facility (under construction) was held.
Partners from 7 BioSTRUCT-X partner facilities were joined by colleagues and video links from Australia and the USA.
The objectives of the meeting were to:
- Hear status reports from each facility in the working group and assemble technical information on kappa geometry goniostats at BioSTRUCTX beamlines.
- To exchange operating experience at different laboratories and define test procedures for testing goniometry at different sites. Several potential test crystals and protocols were discussed, with a number of these tested later in 2013 at SOLEIL.
- To discuss the data model for multi-axis data collections and how this data model can be integrated into high level control and acquisition software with examples presented from external facilities.
- To discuss the content of a review publication on multi-circle goniometers for MX.

Workshop on Advanced Data Collection with Multi-Axis Goniometer and Single-Photon Counting Detector6-8 November 2012
In a meeting of the “Kappa goniometry working group” in November 2011 at BESSY, it was apparent that uptake, by the user community, of possibilities of multi-circle goniometry was patchy and dependent on the commitment of a particular site or local contact to suggest how best to exploit the goniometers for specific problems. The principle activity in this workpackage was then the organization of a workshop at the Swiss Light Source at Paul Scherrer Institut. The objective of this workshop were twofold:

to present, to experienced researchers, the possibilities opened up by multi-circle goniometers at different sites (the mini – kappa goniostats developed in Grenoble, the full kappa goniometer on SOLEIL beamline PROXIMA 1, and the new PRIGo developed at the SLS)

to discuss and consolidate experience using multi-circle goniometry for different experimental problems.

The workshop welcomed a total of 25 participants from 6 different European countries as well as the USA. Two days of presentations were followed by practical data sessions using the PRIGo goniometer on SLS beamline X06DA and several tutorial sessions on different software (XDS with Kay Diederichs, AutoPROC with Clemens Vonrhein, Proteum with Michael Ruf, CrysAlisPro with Tadeusz Skarzynski). The meeting proved an excellent introduction to the evolving needs of the user community, as expressed by Timm Maier (University of Basel), as well as a presentation of the multi-circle facilities available at the different BioStruct-X synchrotron sites (Sandor Brockhauser from ESRF, Pierre Legrand from SOLEIL, Thomas Schneider from PETRA III and Vincent Olieric from SLS). Several “examples” of where the combination of data collected from the same sample but about different orientation axes were showed to be critical to the solution of structures with weak anomalous signal, particularly S-SAD (examples shown by Sandor Brockhauser from ESRF, Sandro Waltersperger from SLS and Pierre Legrand from SOLEIL). In addition, the impact of pixel array detectors in the acquisition of low dose, noise free data was clearly demonstrated by Clemens-Schulze Briese (DECTRIS) with confirmation from the experience at several synchrotron sites. The exploitation of the anisotropy of anomalous scattering for Se-met was outlined by Gerard Bricogne (Global Phasing), followed by discussion on the difficulties posed in making this approach general. A presentation on data analysis software developments in the context of BioStruct-X JRA activities was made by Gwyndaf Evans (DIAMOND Light Source). The data collection sessions provided practical experience for several user groups.
Several issues were identified for the next networking event, a technical discussion (in April 2013) between sites committed to better exploitation of multi-circle goniometry.
Further information and photos of the meeting can be found here

Kick Off meeting at the Helmholz Centre in Berlin 28-29 November 2011
The working group for task 10.7 (“Training and networking in the field of multi-circle goniometry”) met at the Helmholtz Centre in Berlin on the 28th and 29th November 2011 to kick start and plan activities. The working group, involving partners from Soleil, HZB, Max-Lab and Swiss Light Source, collated information on the multi-circle capabilities of each synchrotron centre. Usage of multi-circle goniometry was found to be very variable amongst synchrotron sites, and so the requirement for development and user training was clearly identified. Four workshops will be planned during the course of the BioStruct-X project - two for “developers” in order to investigate best practices, and exchange information about software and usage of multi-circle goniometers, and two for “users” to train users in exploiting multi-circle goniometry.
The next event will be a developer’s workshop on “Advanced data collection with multi-axis goniometer and single-photon counting detector” from the 6th – 8th November 2012 at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.